


Not the fun kind of Daddy issues.

by boogiewrites



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Parenthood, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 21:58:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13797168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boogiewrites/pseuds/boogiewrites
Summary: Jim Hopper is your ex-husband. The fire burned bright but you just aren’t good for each other, you know it. You both try to deal with divorce and trying to raise Jane together despite your differences. Will she end up bringing you back together, or tearing you apart? Or maybe a little of both?





	Not the fun kind of Daddy issues.

Years ago you found yourself accidentally stumbling into one of the biggest secrets in the history of Hawkins. Because of this, the series of events that followed led to a rushed marriage between you and Jim Hopper. The events involving the Upside Down forging a deep, traumatic connection between you, you found yourselves falling in love with each other, although it made no sense to either of you at the time. Apparently shared trauma just really did it for you two. 

Once on the same page with your feelings, you both felt pressured to be perfect parents for Jane, who became your main focus. Your love was intense and wild and burned hot. But, now, you’re divorced. You had been there through the roughest years of raising a child, the pressure being too much for both you. What love you had between each other in the beginning was warped into something unhealthy. The fleeting intense connections and really amazing, although infrequent, sex had made you stay together for longer than you should have. You fought frequently and loudly, sometimes things besides your hearts got broken. Neither of you wanted Jane to have this as an example of how a marriage should be. He didn’t want the divorce, but you were too concerned with how things “should” be and not just living with how things really were. Making yourself not be with someone that you love, because you know deep down it’s not what’s best isn’t great, would not recommend it at all. You still loved Jim, despite his control and anger issues. It would be hypocritical for yourself to judge someone for that, you have the same problems, a big part of why the both of you together could be so good sometimes and so bad others.

So that led you to here. Waiting for Jim to pick Jane up from your house. You were smoking on the front porch, leg bouncing with anxiety about his arrival. She was a senior now, which meant lots of arguments over what she was and wasn’t “allowed” to do between you and Jim. Not to mention your wildly different approaches to parenting. You’ve kept it more than civil between the two of you for her sake, you were downright friendly to Jim given the circumstances. You like to think she isn’t being deeply affected by the split, due to the amount of time you ended up still spending together, but you know she probably is at least on some level. Tonight you were nervous about the dress she wanted to wear to the dance. Such a stupid thing to argue about, you thought. She was almost 18, he couldn’t keep her a child forever, but it felt like he was fighting you every step of the way.  
He pulls in quietly, leisurely strolling up the walkway to the small enclosed space around the front door of your house. It’s one of the reasons you bought it, you could smoke and people watch and not really be noticed. The house was too big for you to live alone in, you’d admit that now, but you were feeling a little crazy after the divorce and that manifested itself into you buying a house in the suburbs for some reason. Maybe it was for stability for Jane. It was a smaller house in general, but 3 bedrooms were just you being too ambitious.   
“She’s inside.” you say before he asks, he lights a cigarette.   
“Who’s she talking to?” he asks in an exhale, you hear her muffled voice through the window  
“One of the girls from school,” you pause to think of which one, “Samantha.” you retrieve it more slowly than you should have. “I like her, she’s the little blonde one, she’s always polite, but not in that sneaky teenage way where they’re just being smart asses.” you smile while you explain.  
“I like her too, she’s been over a few times.” he changes his posture, leaning against the curved brick wall. He looks out onto the street, you know he’s wanting to say something and won’t. Maybe he shouldn’t…you consider.  
“Whose truck was that in your driveway yesterday?” he asks, unprovoked as he refuses to make eye contact.   
“Really, Jim?” you ask, crossing your arms, angrily bringing the cigarette to your lips. He doesn’t look at you for a few beats longer, then he turns to you with an impatient look on his face.  
“Well?” he asks again. Your mouth opens in disbelief at his behavior, you shake your head, turning away from him. “You always do this.” you say low, now it’s your turn to ignore him.   
“So you are seeing someone?” he says, walking closer to you. You turn your head towards him in anger, hoping it came across on your face how finished you were with this conversation.  
“It’s none of your business if I am.” you spit back at him, he’s trying to intimidate you with his size. It’s hard to argue with someone who knows your strengths and weaknesses. “I’m not though…for your information,” you say in a mocking tone, turning your face away from him. His posture softens. “If you’d taken the time to have whoever was spying on me for you to look at the truck, you’d see it was a contractor, I’m re-doing some stuff in the house,” you explain, your voice still annoyed. “Besides!” you say gesturing your hands towards his looming form, unphased. “We-” you motion between the two of you, “Have other dumb things to argue about, so if you would please not start this controlling, ” You lower your voice to imitate his previous words,“ You seeing someone? ” you use air quotations, “…bullshit because I am not having it tonight, Hop. Please.” You punctuate your point with a finger to his chest, your eyes narrowed, your pulse raised. He holds his hand up in surrender, shrugging and backing off.   
“Point taken, sweetheart.”   
“Sweetheart…” you you mumble out, annoyed by his choice of words. “First thing, hopefully, won’t lead to an argument, Jane wants to go see Nancy tonight, she’s in from grad school.” you pause to read his expression, you continue, “They haven’t seen each other in awhile so I told her that I would talk to you about it.” he nods, hands on his hips.  
“Okay. I can deal with that.” he motions with his hand for you to continue with your concerns. As you open your mouth to continue, Jane comes out of the door.   
“Hey, kid.” he hugs her before she has even pulled the door shut. This was the part of Jim you’d stayed around for.   
“Hi.” she greets him, grinning at his affection. “Did she talk to you about seeing Nancy?” she asks quietly, you really admired this kids poker face.  
“Yeah that’s fine with me.” he kisses the top of her head. “You need me to drive you?” he asks, she giggles at his protectiveness.   
“No, It’s just a short walk from here,” she states, as if that’s painfully obvious, she subtly shakes her head at him. She turns to hug you, “Be nice.” she whispers to you. You give her a kiss on the cheek before she pulls away, turning to Hopper.   
“I’ll pick you up around noon tomorrow, does that work?” he asks, doting over her after they share a hug. Every time you saw that look on his face when he was with her your ovaries ached.  
“Yes.” she leaves him with a nod and a smile, you don’t speak until she’s almost over the hill to the Wheelers house.   
“Nancy really is home right?” he asks.  
“What?” you ask, confused.   
“She’s not going over there to stay with Mike is she?” his lips pressed together. You openly laugh at his concern, he was being a fairly adorable dad right now.  
“No, sweetheart,” you say imitating him, “ She is in, I talked to their mom, it’s fine. She’s fine. Let her go for tonight, Hop.” you push the large man’s arm to turn him towards the door. “Let’s go have this argument inside,” you say humorously, as you move him through the doorway. He takes off his coat and hat as you head towards the kitchen. “Making yourself comfortable?” you ask, watching him unbutton the top few buttons of his shirt.  
“You said argument so I figured I might as well,” he says sarcastically, although there’s more than a little truth to that statement. “I just got off work, can we, as civil humans just exist and I can relax after the shit day I’ve had?” he asks sincerely but in an abrasive way.  
“Okay, fine.” you pull back on your defenses, changing your tone.“If you just left work, you’re hungry.” you plainly state, it was so easy to fall right back into taking care of him. You let out a long sigh and your arms stay at your sides despite their instincts to rub across his shoulders. “C'mon.” you groan, turning to head back to the kitchen, “I guess I’m feeding you too tonight.”  
As Jim eats you toss polaroids of Jane in the dresses she might want to wear onto the table as you slide into your benched kitchenette.   
“This is the argument.” you sigh, your elbows on the table, face resting in your right hand. He continues to eat and looks at the photos, he eventually finishes and looks up at you.  
“The dresses for the dance, right?” he asks, moving the plate out of the way and picking up the photos. He smacks his lips, considering the options. You nod and let him work on his counterpoints as you’d already had this conversation in your head, over and over all afternoon, ready to defend Jane’s choices. You had become accustomed to taking the first wave of anger Jim experienced when facing the grown-up nature of his adopted daughter. You felt as her guardian you owed it to her to take the majority of his negativity so she didn’t have to deal with it. You assumed this was another one of those times. “I’m not crazy about any of them.” he says, pushing them towards you.   
“I figured,” you say with a series of nods. “You hate the pink one, don’t you?” you ask. Placing your finger on it.  
“Yeah, she is not wearing that.” he huffs out as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. You smirk at him because you’d told her that he’d hate it, she wanted to at least try, you couldn’t blame a girl her age for trying new things.   
“Okay then,” you throw the photo over your shoulder, disregarding where it landed. “The two black ones.” you tap each of the photos,“ We’ve got strapless and above the knee, but there’s all this tulle covering her shoulders. Your other option, strapless, no coverage, to the knee.” you look over at him. He’s not happy about any of this, it makes him very uncomfortable. “You want to know what I think about it?” you ask.  
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.” he says low, chewing on his bottom lip.   
You let a small laugh and continue, “I say go with the short one with the coverage.” you push it back to his side of the table.  
“Why is that?” he says, not convinced.   
“Because it proportionately covers more of her, but the length makes her feel like she’s getting away with more than she is. Happy daughter, Happy Hopper.” you explain, presenting the photo and idea to him.   
“It’s too far above the knee.” he says reserved. You let out a small noise of frustration.   
“Come on, showing your shoulders is more out there than showing the two inches above your knee. No one cares about a higher hemline now.” you try to counter him, as that dress was the one she had wanted in particular.   
“Well what they care about doesn’t concern me, it’s too short.” he begins to clam up.  
“Okay, I didn’t say this to her, but I’ll say it to you.” he seems slightly intrigued. “All that rough, puffy tulle is going to keep any boy from getting too close for too long.” you state lowly, even though there is no one to overhear. You grab his plate and wash it in the sink, you lean against the counter, looking over at him as he stands and rubs his face, thinking it over.  
“Will it really?” he asks with an uncertainty and sincerity that makes you want to laugh.   
“I can guarantee it won’t make it easier for them.” you offer as a promise. He turns back to face you, surprisingly his worry was showing through his heavy brow unfiltered, his fingers working his temples. You suppose he did have a rough day to wear down this quickly.   
“I don’t want her to grow up.” he angrily states. He looks at you, his shoulders low, palms open and raised. You can’t help the swell of warmth in your chest when you see how much he loves Jane.  
“I know, Hop,” you say, trying to soothe him, you motion for him to come to you. He reconsiders it for just a moment, then he stops fighting, and wraps his arms around you. He hates himself for it. “So'kay,” you whisper, the side of your face against his chest, your hands rubbing soft circles on his back. “It’ll be okay. I miss that wide-eyed little mouse of a girl too.” his faces rubs into the hair at the top of your head.   
“Yeah.” he sighs into your hair. He hated being reminded he was losing another important person in his life.   
“But she’s still here, kids grow up. Soon you’ll have a grown woman you’ve helped form into a decent human to be proud of.” you pat his back. You feel him sigh against you, his chest growing and shrinking in your arms. “I’d rather they stay little sometimes too. I’d take dealing with a snotty nose over a broken heart any day.” your voice remains neutral, reading his body language.   
“I just hate feeling like I’m losing her like I lost you.” you were taken aback by his emotional tone and honesty.  
“You haven’t lost me, Jim, I’m right here.” you say softly, hesitantly.  
“You know what I mean,” he says low, his body stilled, so did yours. “She’ll be gone soon and so will you. With her gone we won’t have a reason to be around each other.” you stayed still against him. You didn’t know this was something bothering him, you felt a pain in your chest at the thought that you might not know him as well as you thought anymore. You knew he could probably see the fast-rising and falling of your chest, you were truly caught off guard.   
“Jim, I…” you begin, raising your face up to try to figure out why you were both trembling. He moves so quickly, his hands around your face, holding you tightly as he melded his mouth with yours. As you realize what’s happening, you let out a tiny involuntary moan at his touch. You’re suddenly hit with that warm, welcome feeling he brings every time he touches you. Your eyes quickly shut, your arms wrapping around his neck as he pushes you against the counter with his hips, his hands already grasping at you. You fall back into old practices, he kisses you deeply, you both pant out small noises. Your hands have found the buckle on his pants, his hands reach up under your dress, you don’t want to fight him off anymore. He starts kissing down your neck and he pulls down your panties, hand already pressing against your inner thighs. “Fuck, Jim…” you moan out as he pulls down the neck of your dress, exposing your breasts, he latches onto you, groaning at how wet you are when his hand meets the apex of your thighs.  
“So you want this as badly as I do, don’t you baby?” he growls against the swell of your chest. You let out a whimper because he’s right. With his fingers already finding your clit, he proved he hadn’t forgotten how to touch you in the time you’d been apart. He starts kissing you again, his mouth and tongue distracting you as he pushes two fingers deep inside of you. He wastes no time filling and stretching you, you’re already moaning into his mouth as he pumps his fingers in and out. “It’s been too fucking long…” he groans into your collarbone as he works those helpless noises out of you. He gives you one last deep kiss before turning you against the counter, you hear the wet noises of him touching himself before you feel him move against you. He pushes your back down and you both take a deep breath. You angle your hips up against him and he pushes himself into you. Your head drops as you shout at the feeling of him. You whine as he hits your deepest parts. “Too fucking long…” he groans again, pounding you into the countertop. Your fingers push against the slick surface of the bar, keeping yourself up as he takes out his frustration on your body. He wraps his hand in your hair and pulls you back, you arch your body to fit up against his as completely as you could manage. Still inside you, he rocks back and forth, tweaking your nipples as you clench around him.   
“Goddammit, Jim.” you groan out, verbally surrendering yourself to him. He always knew how to make you fall apart in his hands. He lets out a low laugh, biting down on your shoulder as he starts to fuck into you faster. His hand slides down your stomach, to your clit, knowing the right pattern to make you flutter around him. Your eyes shut, his arm is around your chest and his hand on your neck to hold you as he roughly handles your body. He rubs your clit, you buck your bodies against each other. You let out a particularly whiney moan, he matches the pace of his thrusts with the movements of his fingers, you feel the waves about to crest over you. “So close.” you warn him with a breathy whisper.  
"I feel you, come for me, sweetheart,” he purrs directly into your ear. You melt around him as your body wants to fall limp and give in to the pleasure. He holds you up, kissing your neck and whispers encouragingly against your skin, “That’s it, mama, come for daddy.” he says softly but dominantly into your ear. You burst around him at the words, you hadn’t heard them in so long. They used to serve as a means to make you get off on a fairly frequent basis, one of the kinkier things to come from domestic life. Since you hadn’t been playing mommy and daddy as a team, you hadn’t had to think about how it made you feel in a while. You cry out against Jim’s fingers, now hooked into your mouth, crept up from the hand on your neck, using your jaw as leverage, he holds you tightly. You mostly just breathe, deep, fast, heavy, noisily against his body as you shake and moan. He feels you squeeze around him repeatedly, his mouth working open kisses across your neck and shoulders. He grunts and takes a firm hold on your hips, letting you know he’s finishing inside you as you clench around him. Your hands rest on the counter in front of you, your chest still heaving, legs still jelly. In the seconds after you come back down from your orgasm, you shut your eyes, realizing what you’ve done.   
You feel Jim’s grip on you loosen, he pulls out and away from you, making you feel cold. He kisses your shoulder as he cleans up and pulls your dress back down. You turn, still resting yourself against the bar. You don’t look at each other, too many emotions heavy in the air. He moves suddenly, before you know it he’s against you again. He kisses you slowly, one had on your neck, the other around your back. “I can’t lose both of you,” he whispers, looking down at your face, his eyes harboring desperation. “I need both of my girls.” he pushes his mouth against yours, not moving. Your chest aches from his words. You want to scream and cry for so many different reasons.   
“Jim…” you begin to argue, he shakes his head, kissing you again. He keeps kissing you until he doesn’t feel your hesitation any longer. “You can’t keep doing this to us, Jim. You know I love you and you’re using it against me.” you say feeling vulnerable.   
“I’d never do that, baby.” he kisses the sides of your face. “You know I love you too and that’s what makes us not being together so stupid.” he punctuates his point with a small laugh. “Jane will be leaving for college and we won’t have to worry about this two house parenting because we can’t stop arguing.” He had a point you hadn’t considered, if you fought over Jane the most, then could you coexist in peace with each other with the stress of a child gone? He can see the thoughts running behind your eyes.   
“I’m not sure, Jim.” you say softly, his hands are holding you tightly.  
“I know you feel this.” he looks at you intensely, finding your gaze. “We can be together for the first time,” he kisses your face again. “No need to worry about a family so fast, no fighting over bedtimes and parties and clothes.” he speaks to you between kisses.  
“Just us?” you ask. Hoping he might be onto something.   
“Yes, just us. She’ll be at college, we’ll be here, alone, together.” he almost pleads.   
“In this big house together?” you ask, bringing humor back to the conversation. He laughs, his watery eyes shine.   
“Yes, we can live in this big stupid house you bought.” he laughs and kisses you again. You smile back against him. “What were you thinking, woman? You all alone in a house this big.” his mouth moves back to your neck, teasing you like you’d never been apart.   
“I was thinking I’d find me a man to fill it up with.” you laugh and tease, your hands naturally finding their way onto his body.  
“You’ve had me this whole time, babe.” his words hit you below the waist, taking a dark turn. The feelings stir between your thighs again, you had almost forgotten how hot you burned when he was around you. You weren’t 100% convinced this would work but, you were also just a girl in love who wanted to be in the arms of the man that loved her. Maybe you should just listen to that inner girl, instead of fighting her. Maybe you’d see where the two of you could go together this time around, it’d been years since you’d tried.   
“So, what, we’re just going to sneak around like teenagers until Jane leaves?” you ask, running your fingers along his undershirt. “That’s exactly what you don’t want her to do Jim, that’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?” you laugh up at him.  
“Yeah, but when has that ever stopped me?” He makes you forget your reservations as he kisses you into submission.


End file.
